Different sources may gather and distribute data with various measurement units and data formats that can be difficult for an end user to integrate. Likewise, rapidly evolving network environments create changes in data formatting that can leave necessary legacy information in a condition that is less useful than the newer data. Transformation tools are required to standardize and unify data streams obtained from the different current and legacy sources.
Another situation may exist where an IT department can lose the ability to understand and control its own software tools, or be required to integrate acquired tools it may not have time to fully understand. A typical scenario where this situation might arise is with corporate mergers and departmental reorganizations, or when natural employee turnover leaves certain production-critical source code maintenance projects orphaned or poorly-understood.
An ability to adapt to changing environments, e.g. by helping integrate and extend existing functionality from a variety of sources (APIs, command line programs, raw data readouts, etc.) so that they can be effectively used by an organization without requiring that the source code of these legacy programs be understood, would be very useful.